New! Easter Bunny Tutorial!

My latest tutorial is now up on the craft cotton company website! and this one is all about Easter!

These are from the official bunny photo shoot that I did, and yes I had to go to the shop for eggs!

You can find the tutorial here : https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3W6ct5H1sa7aVRNWWhJSFoyQ2s/view

And now its gone up I can show you some of the other bunnies I've made! 

This was the first bunny prototype i made to see if the idea would work.

then i made this one experimenting with the idea of adding arms , I think it looks cute with and without though!

Then 1 made one in more boyish colours!

And my final versions! Mr and Mrs bunny! All ready for Easter! And they made lovely gifts for those who don't eat or like chocolate! [or who are too young to have it!]

Hope you like them and if you make your own please send me a picture via email, or twitter or tag me in one on instagram!

Much Love

Frankie

xxx 

P.s The Pattern can be found on my patterns and tutorials page! 

Second Baby Blanket - Spotty Spiral

This is my second baby blanket for a sprog that's being born this year. And i can take no responsibility for the crazy fabric choices, I pulled some very neutral colours from my stash for this quilt, and then Lil man came over asked what I was doing and who the quilt was for and he decided because they have a spotty dog, they must have a spotty quilt and then picked out every spotty fabric I own. 

And then I pulled a few solids and an owl fat quarter and the Spotty Spiral quilt was born!

For the piecing I cut all my fabric into strips the same size and joined them together. so i had one bit long roll of crazy spotty ness, kinda like a jelly roll.

Then I started with my gingham centre square [yeah I put gingham in the mix too!] and added a boarder to each side in a spiral and there you go!! Genuinely some of the most relaxing piecing I've ever done. Sew strip, Cut, Turn, Sew strip, Cut, Turn very therapeutic!

In the end I had to add a solid boarder to balance the quilt a bit more [And its ombre and my awesome matching skills means it goes from dark to light to dark to light perfectly!]

I backed it with white fleece fabric and quilted it in a very simple spiral pattern that I think looks super cool. This was also very relaxing, however I still hate wrestling a quilt under my domestic machine! 

Because of the nature of the project this turned into quite the little stash buster! And although its crazy because of all the prints I think it looks really fun!

And I really love that there's so many different sizes of polka dot! 

The mustard binding really ties the whole thing together, I machined the back and hand stitched the front for a nicer finish. In fact I think hand stitching the binding might be my favourite part of quilting.

I'm pleased with how it all came together especially seen as I didn't choose most of the fabrics and I went for a really simple piecing method! Now both of my baby quilts are finished I can focus on my quilt again! Yay! That is unless someone else decides to get knocked up!!!   

In other news , lil man has been getting up really early which is brilliant obviously [insert copious amounts of sarcasm here]. 

And I've started a full house clean, so far I've done the bathroom and airing cupboard, lil mans room and the kitchen. Just have to do the hallway and its cupboards, the pantry [sobs, there's always spiders in there] and then the living room and the dining/sewing/dvd/guinea pig room! And then our room! Its exhausting but It'll be worth it when its done. So far I'm using the if we don't use it bin it rules! And were putting a lot of stuff up the loft too.

In fact me writing this is me putting off tidying and cleaning 

Much Love

Frankie

xxx   

Latest Fabricgasms!

Without further ado here are my latest Fabricgasms! 

https://www.minervacrafts.com/shop/fabric/dress-fabrics/tartan-m-poly-viscose-tartan-dress-fabric?colour=Red

I'd use this to make a classy punk rock pencil skirt!

http://www.plushaddict.co.uk/cotton-fabric/cotton-lawns-42/dressmaking-cotton-lawn-mahoganay-vintage-floral.html

This would make an awesome Blouse!

https://www.minervacrafts.com/shop/fabric/dress-fabrics/csat-blos-m-chinese-satin-blossom-brocade-dress-fabric?colour=Kingfisher

This I would use to make a kickass Birthday dress!

http://www.plushaddict.co.uk/all-fabric/flannel/riley-blake-alpine-fabrics-flannel-plaid-black.html

This would be awesome for a plaid style shirt!!!

http://shop.sewoverit.co.uk/collections/fabric-type-wool/products/wool-zigzag-merlot

This would make a cute delphine skirt!

http://www.craftcotton.com/craft-fabrics/fat-quarters/printed-fat-quarters/

I'm wondering if I'd look like a five year old in a dress made of teal and white polka dots or really cute and summery!

http://www.craftcotton.com/craft-fabrics/fat-quarters/printed-fat-quarters/

And I think these would make the cutest accessories for a sewing room and for making sewing bags and things!

Much Love

Frankie

xxx

Finished Disappearing 9 patch quilt

Yay I've finally finished one of my baby blankets [Well I've finished both of them but I've not written the Blog post for the second one!] So I'm all caught up and I can start my own quilting projects again! Yay! 

So this one is for the first baby that's being born in April, or thereabouts. Its based on a disappearing 9 patch but added some borders.

These pictures are not brilliant because the wind kept blowing and I've been feeling peaky all day, so I just reached the point where I gave up and decided to live with what I've got.

Its quilted quite simply, I basically started at one corner and quilted at right angles so its like a corner quilting technique. Pretty simple but it looks cool and its all pretty flat.

Its backed with a piece of fleece, I don't tend to add wadding to baby quilts just because I don't see it as being necessary, so instead I just use a squishy fleece. This fleece came from b and ms and was part of a two pack of fleece blankets for 3.99 which is far cheaper than buying fabric from a fabric shop.

I also used fleece for the binding which I hand stitched because I'm a sucker for a hand stitched finish!

So yes very pleased especially seen as I did most of it whilst I was really tired and not in the mood for complicated sewing, actually it was quite nice to just do some really simple finishing of a project!

Aren't the owls adorable? The whole quilt apart from the backing came from my stash, although the entire quilt was inspired by the colours from the owl fabric. Mainly I just wanted to keep things really bright and fun and not fall into my usual dark colour palette.

Yeah so there's not much more I can say about it apart from I love it. I just hope the parents of the baby like it as much as I do! I think its fun and modern and doesn't look too homespun so hopefully they will.

Much Love

Frankie

xxx

Slow Sewing

I had big plans for today, little man was at nursery till 2.30 so i was going to sew all day, I had a shirt cut out and i was ready to really take my time!

That was until I had a sucky nights sleep topped off by a sore throat and a small child deciding to get up at 6.15am , a whole hour before the alarm goes off for nursery. So I was not amused and I was tired. And I had to walk in the snow.

So I had to ditch my plans to sew my shirt because I wouldn't have the brain power for construction let alone top stitching. So instead I decided to have a few cups of tea, watch project runway and then do some slow sewing. As it goes I finished off two unfinished projects. And then spent a while waiting for the rain/snow to stop so I could take them outside to photographs before I lost the light. Which didn't happen so here's some pictures of the process. [ I'll do the proper pictures as soon as the weather decides to stop being a pain in the ass!]

I've got two baby quilts to finish and luckily managed to pick up some backing fabric a few days ago. Confession time, I didnt even use wadding for these, i just used squishy fleece fabric!, It's quicker and so much easier to baste them!!!

I've quilted both of them and hand sewn the front of the binding.

The finishing didn't take as long as I thought they would, I'd say the quilting took the most amount of time, Boy would I give my right arm for long arm quilter! Its pretty tough going doing it on my regular machine.

So yeah it was a productive day, but not as productive as I wanted it to be, Luckily I've got Saturday and Sunday night to sew as well. And maybe then I'll have had a bit more sleep!

Much Love

Frankie

xxx

World Book Day

Its world book tomorrow, or at least that when our nursery is celebrating. And world book day means dressing up, which means mummy raiding the house for supplies and cracking out the sewing machine.

Naturally I decided to make lil man a penguin from one of his books "the happy penguin and the little seal"  [I'm not sure why I've linked that, probably because I know there's parents out there who can probably recite every word of every book their child owns so it might be nice to give them a bit of variety!]. Anyway as it goes penguin costumes are hard! and I didn't have any black fabric and it was all just looking a bit crap really so plus I'd procrastinated for a good three weeks and now had no other options other than to wing it [I can imagine my mum will laugh at this because she always said I used to change my mind ten times before any costume event, In fact one year she mad me a pony costume and then I decided to go as something else! Looks like my indecisiveness doesn't change.]

So I decided to send him as Link from "Hyrule Historia" I.e Link from legend of zelda the video game, which him and his daddy have been avidly playing!

Naturally I had to use what I had on hand, sooooo the trousers are his new chinos, the shirt is an old white shirt that only just fits I removed the collar and just left the collar stand, the tunic is two pieces of green fabric [stash] with some neck shaping, I simply sewed the shoulder and side seams, I left all the other edges raw. The hat is a triangle sewed up one side and I added a band to the bottom with elastic in to make sure it stays on his head. The shield I drew and painted, {its one of the designs from the game} onto card from the back of a notebook. The sword came from b and ms, because I wasn't happy with any of the ones I made, and because we knew we'de get use from it anyway! The belt is an old one of mine that I cut down!

And doesn't he look sweet! Even Rikki smiled when he saw it all come together! 

My main issue was making something he would be comfortable in and something he would be able to have a wee in at nursery. I know the staff have said before to please make sure that children can take themselves to the toilet in their costumes.  

Hopefully he likes it, he kind of looks like Robin Hood or Peter Pan as well so I think that's what the staff will think he is. Although they might have played the game when they were younger I suppose! 

So yeah I've not completely played by the rules because its originally game based but their is a book and I made a whole costume in like an hour and a half so that's a win! And seen as I think its going to be a class of superheroes tomorrow its nice that h'ell look a bit different! 

Here's him and his daddy seen as they are the "team game!" and "team boy" to quote lil man! I'm actually wondering if there's another occasion I can dress him up for and have Rikki dressed up as a character from the game too! 

So yay success, now I just have to sew for me for another year!

Much Love

Frankie 

xxx

 

The Jumpsuit That Wasn't

This project nearly became a total fail, as in I nearly cried and swore myself off sewing for life, but I persevered and got something wearable in the end.

So hears my tale of woe [you can skip this bit if you want and just go and look at the pretty pictures, but I warn you I am going to be pretty hilarious, and you don't want to miss that]

Now it all started when lovely pen friend gave me a length of orange black and white fabric in sort of a block printed geometric design [yes I should have took a picture] Anyway as soon as I saw it I thought, Jumpsuit or even better playsuit! One like the brightly patterned ones that you see in the high street, something cool and wearable that would look casual and relaxed for the summer.

So I jumped straight in head first, and traced the jumpsuit pattern from the Great British Sewing Bee book, however I shortened the legs to make it a play suit and changed the neckline slightly, I lowered it and omitted the frill. So far all was going well. Now for the cutting, I had originally wanted to cut the shorts part from the darker panel section of the fabric, but it wasn't wide enough so I had to cut the shorts from the orange and white part and the top from the black and orange part. [traditionally its considered more slimming to wear the darker colour on your bottom half, or at least that was my thinking]

Anyway I sewed it up and experienced no problems until I came to put it on, it was tight, I mean really tight. So I decided to do a quick fix job and added a waistband to give me some more length in the torso. But it didn't work.... At all.  I actually have pictures of me on it, but I'm not posting them on-line because its just a mess, and I look a mess and even for the sake of honest blogging I am not posting that crap on the internet. I have no intention of being a meme at any point in my life. And if I post those pictures I will become one. It was just awful! It was baggy around the top and tight around the legs and the shorts were too long and it actually looked like my crotch was eating the fabric , seriously it was like a scene from "teeth". Now I'm not sure what happened but I showed my mum and we concluded that it was the combination of my long torso and large posterior that led to the hideous fit issues. 

Naturally though I didn't give up because I'm a trooper and I love the fabric!!! So I added lace! seventies style lace. They say you can't polish a turd...... But you can roll it in glitter! No I'm joking it still looked like crap so I ripped off all the lace, cursed my mothers family genes that meant my bottom made the crotch look like the camel scene from Lawrence of Arabia, cut the top off and ended up with this.

Which is pretty cute huh? [you can also see in this picture that my bum might not have been the only culprit, I think my hips threw in their own crotch distorting wizardry, GOD DAMM YOU WOMANLY CURVES ]

But yeah my bum does pack some punch! But back to the top, its cute and I really love it, its great for chucking on with jeans and skirts and I see many more in my future. Its very wearable to say its made from a woven fabric.

That my phone in my pocket, I don't have a rectangular cheek I promise.

I like it better tucked in, but I think the pattern placement is pretty even, especially seen as I was working with minimal fabric.

Now I just have to decided what to do with the shorts portion? Voodoo, ritual sacrifice? Answers on a postcard people! [I really do wish I had the courage to show you the pictures because MY GOD! Did I look like a sack of poop! That's the polite way of putting it, my mother uses slightly more vulgar wording for that expression, but I'm a lady, A lady with a crotch that engulfs fabric..........]

So from failure to success! I can't believe after the amount of sewing hours I put into this all I have to show for it is a cami top ! Aww well at least I love it!

Much Love

Frankie 

xxx